The Darkness Within
by x-jam-x
Summary: More than one Keyblade Master was born when the worlds began falling into darkness. Zephyr escapes the fate of his world with his heart intact...for a price. OC's, M/M pairings.
1. Radiant Garden I

DISCLAIMER: This disclaimer counts for all my chapters, because I am a lazy s.o.b. I do not own Disney or Square Enix, and none of the Disney, Square Enix, or Kingdom Hearts characters belong to me. I make no money off of this story, either.

A/N: Helloz. I'm proud to introduce my first fanfic. Yes, the main characters are OC's, but I like to think I made a plausible sub-plot in the KH world. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.

**-x-**

Radiant Garden

"Well then! I think that's quite enough practice for one day," Merlin huffed amicably, brushing leftover flurries of magic off of his plain, blue robes. He smiled behind his spectacles at his one and only apprentice; in only two years the young man had already come so far, and Merlin could say he was quite proud of him. "You're doing splendidly, Zephyr!"

Zephyr, his apprentice, crossed lightly tanned arms behind a platinum blonde head, the grin on his face almost as bright as the one sparkling in his emerald green eyes. He was a bit short for his age – five feet and six inches, though he still held on to the hope that he would one day grow taller. "Come on, old man," the young man drawled, and his voice somehow did and did not fit him at the same time; maybe one would think the voice a touch too deep, or a tad too smooth, for a boy who looked as he did. "One more go? I'll have it this time, I promise!"

"Now, remember, I told you this was very advanced magic. I wouldn't be surprised if this took you some ti-."

"_Pleeeease_, Merlin?"

"-me to accomplish. I remember when I was your age – my, that was quite a while ago – it took me se-."

"Ma-_ster_…"

"-veral days before I had it just right. Fire is a tricky element, you know. I set half the master's tower on fire be-."

A disgruntled sigh this time, though the corner of Zephyr's mouth twitched up in amusement. If Merlin truly believed they should stop for now, he would have just stopped them (maybe literally, though he _hated_ the time spell).

"-fore I finally mastered it. Hehe. And half the master's beard!" Merlin reminisced fondly, stroking his own rather long mane of silver hair. After a moment or two lost in his own memories, he snapped back to the present with another amiable smile. "But if you think you're up to it, why, I don't see the fault in another try!"

"Yes!"

Merlin tried to squelch the sense of foreboding that suddenly roiled in the pit of his stomach.

About the same time this brief exchange was happening inside of Merlin's disheveled house, another young man – though slightly older and paler and, by far, taller than his talented magician friend – was strolling leisurely down one of Radiant Garden's many paved streets. Most other residents left him a wide birth as he passed, though no one really knew why they did it. It was almost instinctual, as basic as breathing and just as impossible to unlearn. But the young man didn't mind the solitude all that much; rather, he enjoyed it, reveled in it, because he really couldn't care one way or the other if all of these people suddenly…disappeared, or something similar. What was their purpose? What was _his_? Would it make a difference in the world if any one person were to just one day vanish? Would anyone notice, or care? Was everyone really so…_useless_? – and he grimaced, for he hated this term. Very few people truly mattered in this world.

'_Zephyr matters_,' came a whisper from somewhere deep inside himself, '_in my world, at least._' And he quickly locked that thought away.

That was where he was headed – to find Zephyr. He had something he wanted to tell his friend and, though he didn't care less (okay, maybe a little; he wasn't a _total_ robot), he thought the news might interest Zephyr. He assumed he would find the blonde at Merlin's house, messing around with magic like he usually was. He wasn't very good at magic himself, he much preferred to get up close and personal with whatever or whoever he happened to be fighting, but he had to admit that Zephyr had talent; a gift. He could do amazing things, seemingly without even trying, and picked it all up so quickly.

"Good mornin' to ya, lad!" Scrooge McDuck was waddling toward him, his cane in one hand and three blue popsicles precariously clutched in the other.

"I guess so."

"You wouldn't happen ta like sea-salt ice cream, would ya? They were closin' up shop earlier today and I'm afraid I got a wee bit carried away!"

The young man ended up taking two, one for himself and one for his friend, and watched as the old, odd duck began to hobble off.

"Try not to go down town, if ya can help it," Scrooge threw over his back. "It's all closed up by now, anyway. Something fishy is going on down there, I'll wager."

'_I wonder if it has anything to do with what Squall was saying…_'

The door to Merlin's was closed when he arrived – not that that was out of the ordinary or anything; it just made it difficult to knock on the door. He settled for lightly kicking the door and waiting.

And waiting.

And kicking the door, just a little harder.

And waiting.

He knew Merlin and Zephyr were in there – he could have sworn he'd heard the old wizard's voice. Maybe they were busy, but that didn't matter now. What he'd heard early turned out to be much more important than he'd first thought. After several wasted moments of fumbling, and shifting, and mild cursing, the young man managed to move one of the popsicles to his other hand and open the door with his now-free hand.

"FIRE!"

"Oh no!"

'_Fire? Where?_

'_Oh…_'

"Coren!"

There was a great ball of flame hurtling toward him, the edges of it licking at and consuming spare parchment and books that unfortunately happened to be in its path. Coren might have seen his life flash before his eyes at that moment, seen those pearly white gates for an instant and worried for his life; he might have even shut his eyes. But it was all for naught.

"WIND!"

There was a brief wave of heat as the fireball closed in on him, and then, all of a sudden, there was nothing; and then, even more suddenly than before, there was a great burst of movement in the air around him, to the point of knocking him off his feet and into a pile of books, several of which tumbled down the ridiculous pile to land rather painfully on his head. When the wind finally stopped blustering, and his head finally stopped spinning, the cacophony of sounds in front of him began to make sense.

"I'm so sorry, Cor; I didn't know you were out there! You're okay, aren't you? Oh, God, you're bleeding! How many fingers am I holding up?"

Coren opened his eyes, very slowly, and was glad for once that Merlin's house was so dim.

"Which one of you are you referring to?"

"Oh, God!"

"Calm down, Zephyr," Merlin placed a hand on Zephyr's shoulder, who was so rattled he actually jumped. "Nothing a quick Cure won't fix!" He waved his aged hands, and a soft green light surrounded Coren's sprawled body. The rather large cut on his forehead, maybe from one of the tumbled books or a stray flying teapot, glowed green briefly and disappeared, as did the blood, and the young man found his vision clearing. Zephyr stood at the bottom of the book pile, hands clutching his staff so tightly his knuckles were turning white. His hair was even more of a mess than usual, sticking up at such an odd angle that Coren was actually tempted to laugh, and might have in a situation where he hadn't almost been fried alive by a giant fireball. And Merlin's house looked much like Zephyr's hair – more of a mess than usual. What little of the floor had been visible before was now covered with scattered books and parchment and broken teapots, and several bookcases had been overturned. "My, that was some Aero spell you used," Merlin remarked, surveying the damage. "Quick thinking!"

"I'm sorry," Zephyr said again, both to Coren and to Merlin. If he hadn't almost killed his friend, he wouldn't have had to unleash a small tornado in Merlin's house to save him.

"Don't worry, I'm fine," Coren said without inflection. He slid off the pile of books he'd landed on and held out the lone surviving ice cream. Its blue-hued brother was stuck to the ceiling and beginning to drip onto Merlin's bed. "Consider it a present from Scrooge."

"That's odd." But he accepted the ice cream with a smile, because it was from Coren, and Coren was a stiff, cold rock most of the time, and because it was _always_ nice to get free ice cream, especially when it was sea-salt.

"So, Coren, what brings you here?" Merlin asked as he began to resort his house into perfect disorder with a few flicks of his wrists. Coren didn't usually drop by when Zephyr was training (not that he usually dropped by at all) because, however talented and gifted Zephyr was, he was extremely accident-prone. This hadn't been the first time Coren had almost been burnt or frozen or shocked or squashed to death, and he doubted it would be the last.

"I overheard Squall talking with someone. He tried to visit Ansem this morning, but something was preventing him from getting in." He hadn't meant to eavesdrop, really, he'd just been at the right place at the right time and been well-concealed. He wouldn't have stayed to listen if Ansem's name hadn't popped up. Ansem the Wise had been acting out of sorts lately, keeping inside the study within his castle. He hadn't been outside in months, and the people were beginning to worry something serious was wrong. "I didn't understand. He said it was some strange creature, made out of shadows…His weapon couldn't hurt it."

Merlin paused in his work, bushy brows furrowing in a half-remembered thought. "Creatures made out of shadow, you say? Why does that sound familiar?"

Coren's friend also paused, mid-ice cream (a sure sign that something was wrong), a cold feeling that had nothing to do with his popsicle settling heavily in the pit of his stomach. _No_, he told himself. _It can't be._

"Are you alright, Zephyr?" The expression on the blonde's face was worrying Coren. He had frozen, and much of the color had drained from his face. His eyes were wide and slightly panicked. Though at the sound of the older boy's voice, Zephyr seemed to snap out of it. A brilliant (_and fake_, Coren's subconscious added) smile hid any ill feelings that had been there before.

"I'm fine," and the smile lost its falseness and instead grew fiercely determined, and Coren began to worry for another reason entirely. When Zephyr became determined, Coren ended up almost burnt or frozen or shocked or squashed to death, and he could only imagine how things would pan out if Zephyr had decided he wanted to take on these 'shadow creatures.' "We should go check it out!"

"I wouldn't advise that," Merlin was completely serious, a look which, in Zephyr's opinion, didn't really belong on the man. "Nothing good can come from chasing after these creatures. If only I could remember…I best go see what all the fuss is about!" He disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Maybe it should have ended there. Maybe Zephyr should have just taken the advice of his master and gone home and gone to sleep. Then maybe, when the world began to end later that night, he would sleep through the nightmare. Maybe then his friend wouldn't have been awake either, fighting for his life and the equivalent of his very soul when Radiant Garden finally fell into the darkness. Maybe then Coren wouldn't have lost his heart. But Zephyr couldn't know any of this; none of it had happened yet and so, for the moment, he was spared the heart-numbing guilt. For the moment, Zephyr completely disregarded the worries of his master and shot a conspiratorial grin at Coren, who rolled his eyes in return.

The two boys left Merlin's house and walked into the evening sunlight. Radiant Garden was most beautiful at sunset, when the red-orange glow of the sun set the white paved streets and stone buildings ablaze. At sunset there was only the soft rushing sound of the far off rising falls and the distant chime of young children's laughter as they played that one final game before nightfall. Zephyr folded his arms behind his head and closed his eyes, smiling softly as he listened to the sound of home. The cold feeling still coiled in his gut, slowly growing worse as the sun sank behind the houses. For some terrible reason, this felt like it would be the last time he would hear the happiness of the children of Radiant Garden, or watch the sun light the stone streets on fire, or see that distant star dip below the horizon.

Coren loved sunsets for entirely different reasons, and could care less about how beautiful the sun made the roads on which he walked everyday or the musical ring of laughter or the whisper of the distant falls. Coren loved the way the evening light sparkled in his younger friend's eyes, the way the sun kissed his skin and left its mark in the color of his hair. He loved the smile this time of day usually brought to Zephyr's face, though right now his smile seemed bittersweet. All these thoughts sank back into Coren's subconscious almost as soon as he thought them, to the point where he could almost convince himself he hadn't thought them at all. He didn't know when Zephyr had become more than a friend to him, when he had become his most important person, the one person who reminded him every day that not everyone was _useless_.

They arrived at a ramshackle house that didn't fit in with any of the other surrounding ones. The wood of the door and its frame, and the frame of the one broken window, was warped and peeling and the stones were all chipped and cracked. Coren pulled a ring of keys off of one of the many belts that adorned his waist and started unlocking the door, one lock at a time, until all seven locks were opened. There probably wasn't a need for such security in a world like Radiant Garden, and, even if there was, who would think to break into a house as dilapidated as this? But Coren kept his most precious possession in this small shack, the only remnant of his parents – his mother's sword. He kept it in his room in a polished wooden chest by the foot of the moth-eaten bed, away from prying eyes. Another set of keys opened the seven locks on the chest.

Zephyr knelt next to Coren in the dust and watched as his friend reached into the chest and carefully pulled out the sheathed sword. That foreboding feeling inside him was still growing, and turning melancholy. Coren had many other swords, and used all of them, but he had never pulled out this sword with the intention of actually using it. Something horrible was going to happen tonight, whether Zephyr ran to face it head on or not. "You don't need to come with me, you know. It's probably nothing."

"And let you have all the fun without me?" Coren glared at the younger boy as he unsheathed the sword. It was a simple long sword – smooth, sharp and made of an unbreakable mithril ore. For some reason the sword reminded Zephyr of Coren – like a physical representation of his character. He wasn't surprised to see the blade was in excellent condition; Coren had been taking good care of it.

"You feel it, too, don't you?" the blonde asked.

"That something terrible is going to happen?"

"Yes."

Coren stood, attached the sword to another one of his belts, and held out his hand. A faint smile played on the corners of his mouth and, for the briefest moment, he embraced all the emotions he felt for Zephyr, because he felt like this might be the last chance he'd be able to experience the joy that they brought him ever again. "I won't let anything happen to you. I promise."

Later, Coren would believe the smile he was rewarded with was worth all the hardship he would go through.

"I know."

**-x-**

Reviews would be most appreciated. ^_^


	2. Radiant Garden II

A/N: Helloz again! I am most excited to introduce the second chapter! I had fun writing this sucker. My disclaimer can be found in the first chapter.

I'm going to try and update every Friday. We'll see how that flies...Enojy Chapter 2. ^^

**-x-**

Radiant Garden

A five-year-old Zephyr ran through the streets of Radiant Garden, a child's carefree grin taking up most of his cheeky face. Somewhere far behind him, his aunt was looking for him, calling for him, and growing steadily more cross with each passing minute. Why couldn't that insufferable bundle of energy just sit quietly for five minutes and give her some peace? She loved the boy dearly, as if he were her own son (and it helped that he was the spitting image of her late brother), but she could swear she hadn't had a single grey hair until four years ago, when she took Zephyr in. But the excited little blonde didn't think of any of that; there were much more important things to be concerned with: fireflies.

Under one arm, the small boy clutched his treasure – an old jam jar full of fireflies. Before him flew his most elusive target yet, and the lightning bug bobbed and weaved through crowded streets, around sign posts, now down dingy, empty alleyways, beckoning for Zephyr to follow it with its soft and ever present glow. He focused all his concentration upon it with the single-mindedness of a child. He didn't notice how dark his surroundings had become, or how silent. He wasn't even aware of any obstacles that might have been in his way until he was tripping over one and flying through the air. He landed hard on his hands and knees, and his treasure escaped him and rolled further into the darkness.

He quickly stood and ran to his treasure, clutching the jar to his chest, and turned to glare (pout angrily) at whatever had caused him to fall. And froze. There was a strange lump huddled in the shadows, a distinctly body-shaped lump with two narrowed storm blue eyes peering through red rose petal hair. It took him a moment to realize that that lump was, in fact, alive and watching him intently. Zephyr held his treasure aloft, using the light of the fireflies to illuminate the dark alley. The lump was a boy only little older than he was, with pale, pale skin and a sad, almost deadened, expression.

"Hello!" Zephyr smiled cheerfully at the boy, unperturbed by the eeriness that seemed to cling to him like a second skin, and knelt by him on the dirty stones. "My name's Zephyr!" The boy continued to stare at him with the same melancholy expression, if now slightly annoyed, but the young blonde refused to be deterred. He sat down fully, crossing his short, pudgy legs underneath him, and pulled the jar of fireflies into his lap. "This is my treasure! My Auntie helped me catch 'em."

The red-head hugged himself tighter and pressed himself against the wall, as if he were trying to meld with the very bricks and disappear. This odd boy, with hair like sunshine and grass green eyes and a jar full of light, was not going to leave him alone, like all the others had. He was not going to pass him by with that vague pitying look in his eyes like all the women did, or ignore him completely like all the men did. The boy wasn't sure whether he liked this change or not. He was growing used to being alone, to be avoided and ignored. He was actually starting to like it, because he was really starting to _hate_ all these people. They were all so _useless_. "Your fireflies are going to die."

"Huh?" The five-year-old held the jar very close to his face and watched as all the lightning bugs danced with each other within the glass, their shifting glows intermingling into one soft light. They all looked fine to him.

"You have no holes in the top. They're going to suffocate."

"Suffah-kate?"

"Die."

"I don't want that!" The boy cried out, looking panicked, and gripped the jar even tighter in his little hands.

"Here," the nameless boy gently pried the jar out of the other child's hands and began unscrewing the lid. Why was he humoring this boy? He didn't understand why he had spoken to him at all; he shouldn't have encouraged him. This small boy would just leave him, like everyone else. No one wanted to stay with him, no one needed him, because he, too, was _useless_.

But he didn't feel useless at all as the lid to the jam jar came undone, and the fireflies were all let free in one breathtakingly beautiful cloud of light that seemed to illuminate even the darkest corners of the alley. The other boy, Zephyr, immediately leapt up and began chasing after them again, laughter like the ringing of a small bell bubbling out of him and echoing off of the stone walls until it sounded like they were surrounded by the sound of a thousand happy children. For a moment, the first moment in a long, long time, the pale boy felt happiness sitting there on that filthy alley floor with fireflies hovering all around and watching that silly little kid running around in circles after them. But he knew the feeling wouldn't last. The lightning bugs began to fly away down the alley, taking the light and Zephyr with them, and the boy was left alone. He wrapped his thin arms around himself and buried his face into his knees, not understanding why this particular abandonment hurt so much worse than those of all the apathetic women or ignorant men, just feeling that it did.

"Hey!"

The red-head startled so badly he actually jumped and fell over, not expecting to hear a voice so close to him. Zephyr was standing over him with the empty jar held loosely in one hand; the other hand was held out toward him, and the nameless boy stared blankly at it, not knowing what to do.

"Aren't you comin'?" Zephyr asked, head tilting to one side.

The boy in the dirt blinked once, twice –

– and accepted the hand held out to him, letting Zephyr help him to his feet. Zephyr never let go.

"What's your name?"

"Coren…"

The blonde flashed a grin at him and began running down the alley, tugging Coren along with him. "Come on! Our treasure's getting away!" And the alleyway was again filled with the chime of his laughter.

'_Our treasure?_' Coren wondered, but didn't bother to ask. He couldn't have asked even if he had wanted to, because he was much too busy laughing as well. He couldn't seem to stop himself. And when the two children burst from the alleyway into the sunlight, the nearby men and women did not look upon Coren with apathy or pity, but with the universal fondness and joy most people held for children. He still hated them, for being _useless_, but it didn't matter anymore. Zephyr was different. Zephyr had come back for him, and pried him out of the darkness, made him feel useful and made him smile for the first time in three years. Coren would never forget that. Never.

Eleven years later, a nineteen-year-old Coren and a younger Zephyr made their way through the deserted streets of downtown Radiant Garden. Zephyr felt as though he were inside of a giant tomb; downtown was _never_ closed, even when shops closed at night there were always friendly faces milling about, but now the district was deathly quiet, the only sounds at all being their soft, steady breathing and the muffled tap of their footsteps on the cobbled streets. Zephyr walked in front, staff held at the ready, and Coren walked behind, watching his back, sword held loosely in one hand. The usually comforting sight of the castle was tainted by the constant gnawing in their stomachs, and now the building simply resembled a ferocious looming monster of metal and stone.

"It's too quiet," Zephyr muttered pensively.

Coren disagreed, and he was surprised that Zephyr hadn't noticed that the two of them weren't completely alone. He had felt the presence long before they had set foot into the empty district, and the feeling only grew stronger the closer they came to the castle. He could hear malicious whispers coming from the shadows of the shops, and the trees, and even the signposts, could feel eyes on his back watching his every movement, ears listening to every slightly quickening beat of his heart. There was a sense of wrongness surrounding them and everything around them.

A chilling scream, a child's mindless wail of terror, pierced the silence like a needle. Zephyr was running before the last echoes of that poor child's cries had reverberated off of the surrounding walls, before the sound had even fully registered in his mind; he just moved instinctually. Coren followed a beat later, cursing under his breath, wondering why his blonde friend had to be so damn _impulsive_, and why couldn't he just _think_ before he acted for once, and why was there a random kid all alone in a deserted district that had been closed down hours ago? Certainly their parents hadn't just left them there? The sense of wrongness sharpened almost painfully, stabbing him deeper in the heart with each step they took closer to the castle, farther into the shadows.

The cry had come from a raven-haired little girl hiding by herself in the back of an alley. Zephyr arrived just in time to watch the nightmare begin to unfold, to watch as the shadows began to converge in every darkened corner, on every filthy wall, to pool around the little girl's feet and lap at her ankles. The mage shot forward again, as fast as he could, toward the little girl as pairs upon pairs of dull yellow eyes began to open and focus their soulless gaze upon her, who covered her eyes as she began to wail again as if that would make the monsters disappear. The shadows writhed, weaved, began to separate, so that now joining every pair of eyes was a set of long, tapered claws clutching at her dress, pulling at her hair. And now Zephyr was screaming as well, casting spell after spell, fire and ice and thunder melded together into one nonsensical stream of shouts and blurred colors. The shadows lurched, some even sank back into the darkness, but it was not enough; there were too many, and the blonde had exhausted himself. He fell to his knees as the little girl let out one last whimper, and was consumed by the shadows.

"Ooh… – ," '– God. _So this is the nightmare? I was right, I was right, I was _right_…_'

"Zephyr!" Coren had not, unfortunately, missed the horror, but, though he did feel for the girl, he was much more concerned for his friend kneeling in the middle of the alleyway as the shadows began to crawl closer and closer. He grabbed Zephyr's shoulder tightly and tried to pull him back out of the alley, but the blonde was frozen there, like another stone in the street. "Come on! We can't stay here!"

"She's gone…"

"Yes. Come _on_!" Another sharp tug and Zephyr seemed to snap out of it, scrambling to his feet and stumbling after Coren out of the alley. That cold, gut-wrenching feeling was gone, the despair was gone, and in their place was a hot, bubbling rage. He knew these monsters; he knew how they were born, from the darkness within people's hearts. He had heard the story so many times; every child was told the story of the rebirth of Radiant Garden. But why, _why_, were these monsters here? The people of Radiant Garden were _good_, mostly, weren't they? Or, at least, they weren't evil enough to warrant _this_. What had that little girl done to deserve such a terrible fate? He glanced over his shoulder at the shadows that were slowly slinking after them, stared into those lifeless yellow eyes, and what he felt was neither hatred nor fear, but a strange yet powerful enraged indignation. _Why_?

The two of them were away from the shops and back in the residential district, but the eerie quiet had followed them. The doors and windows of every house were shut tight and locked, and the people had all turned out their lights. Pale faces could be seen peering from some of the windows, eyes wide and mouths open in fear as they glanced from one shadow to another, waiting. Faint screams and yells could be heard in the distance of people who tried to escape their fate. Coren heard the whispers coming from behind them, creeping up on them, and pulled the two of them into an empty building. There were shadows behind them, and screams in front of them; where was there to go?

"What the hell _were_ those things?" Coren managed to ask through his harsh breathing as he leaned against a bare wall. "Where did they come from?"

He hadn't expected an answer; he figured Zephyr didn't know either, but after a few minutes of silence, Zephyr spoke.

"They came from _us_."

"_What?_"

"It's like in the story –!"

"Not _that_," Coren cut the blonde off abruptly, folding his arms over his thin chest. His sword was back in its sheath, though he was ready to pull it out again whenever he needed to – though, hopefully, he wouldn't need to. "That's just a children's story, Zeph."

"Then how do you explain _that_?" the blonde demanded as he pointed out of the shattered window. The sun had finally set completely, and there was no moon to light this terrible night. The screams and the yells had all died away, either too far away to be heard or there was simply no longer anyone to utter the sounds, and the whispers had taken their place. The shadows writhed and curled and waited. Coren had no answer. "…What are we going to do, Coren?"

Coren stared at Zephyr, and Zephyr stared back. What _were_ they going to do? Crouch and hide in this empty building like frightened rats and wait to die? Though running headfirst into death, or whatever grizzly fate awaited them, was in no way preferable. Thankfully, the decision was made for them. The whispers seeped through the crack under the door, poured through the holes in the broken window, and the shadows in the room began to rise and open their eyes. Claws formed out of the darkness. Coren drew his sword and put himself between Zephyr, who braced himself and held his staff at the ready, and the encroaching shadows. Suddenly Coren was struck with a memory, the memory of eleven years ago when he had found _his_ treasure. His Zephyr. But now he and Zephyr were the fireflies trapped in the jar, about to "suffah-kate", and there was no one who could help them.

And so began the fight of their lives, the fight for their very souls, as it were. It would be wonderful if it could be said that what followed was a long and arduous battle, that the young swordsman and the mage gave it their all against the darkness and, in the end, triumphed over it. But that can't, in good conscience, be said, because that would be a lie. The truth was that the battle was sickeningly short. Magic seemed to work against the shadows, and, despite the fact that Zephyr was exhausted, he pulled from what little mana he had left, and again the stream of shouts commenced – "Fire!", "Freeze!", "Thunder!". Coren's blade could not cut through the shadows, but he could knock the shadows away from Zephyr, and, for a while, that was enough. For a short while, it seemed as though the two boys had worried for nothing, and the shadows _could_ be defeated, and that, in the end, everything would be fine.

Neither of them saw the lone dark shadow creeping behind them, pooling under Zephyr's feet, and that was their undoing.

"C-C-C-Coren!" the blonde yelped as the darkness wrapped around his ankles and began to yank him down. He lost his balance, fell to his hands and knees, yelped again as it lapped at his hands and wrists, freezing to the touch. He watched in horror as his hands sank into the floor, into the shadows, and no matter how hard he tried, he could not pull them back. "Cor!"

"Zephyr!" Coren surged forward, was blocked by the shadows, by claws and yellow eyes, and tried again. Where the hell had all these shadows sprung from so suddenly?

"Cor!"

There were shadows on Coren's arms, holding onto his legs, their whispers like shouts in his ears; but he didn't care. His Zephyr was waist-deep in the darkness, beautiful green eyes widened and paled in terror, jaw clenched in what looked like pain; and he was _calling_ for him, he _needed_ him, _now_, and these stupid fucking shadows were _getting in his WAY!_

The blonde was chest-deep now. The shadows began pulling Coren down, as well.

Neck-deep now. Petrified green eyes met panicked blue-grey.

Chin-deep now, and Zephyr closed his eyes so that Coren, his dearest friend, his red rose petal hair and storm blue eyes and pale, pale skin and his now enraged, almost manic, expression, would be the last thing he would ever see.

"_NO!_" Or, at least, Zephyr _thought_ he heard 'no.' It sounded more like an inhuman roar than anything else, but it was the most beautiful sound in the world. It was the sound of his salvation. It was the sound of arms coming down into the darkness and wrapping around his shoulders, pulling him up, up out of the shadows and back into the light. It was the sound of Coren's relieved smile as they held each other in that decrepit building, the most heartfelt smile Zephyr had ever seen his friend express, that went straight to his heart. But it was also the most terrible sound he had ever heard, because it was the sound of black, jagged claws piercing Coren's chest. It was the sound of Coren's scream of agony as his heart was ripped out of his chest. It was the sound of his eyes growing lifeless and dull, of his body slumping off to one side. It was the sound of Zephyr crying his name over and over again as he held onto his body, ignorant of the shadows that returned to try and reclaim him, of the light emanating from the blonde's body and seeping into Coren's.

It was the sound of Zephyr's heart breaking.

Why? _Why? Why was this happening?_

Zephyr closed his eyes, buried his face in his friend's neck, and let the darkness take him.

**-x-**

Reviews, por favor? ^_^


	3. Prydain I

A/N: Hi! Woo, it's been 2 years since I've touched this baby! That's...kind of shameful! But I'm back, and I'm eager to keep writing. I have a nice, longish chapter here, and more on the way.

However, my KH knowledge has expanded greatly since I began this! I didn't realize there was a 9 year gap between when Radiant Garden became Hollow Bastion and KH started, for instance. And now there's BBS and all sorts of whatnot. To make this simple (for myself...), I'm only using knowledge learned in KH and possibly KHII. So because of the 9 year gap, KH characters you know and love probably won't come into this story, except for maybe Leon and the gang.

The disclaimer still holds, of course! Everything belongs to Disney or Square Enix. Only Zephyr, Coren, and the plot are mine. ^^

**-x-**

Prydain

The Horned King sat upon his stone throne in his black and crumbling castle. Before him were his _loyal subjects_, unwashed sniveling cowards and mindless heathens all quivering with fear at the mere sight of him. And groveling at his feet like a whipped mongrel was Creeper, the most worthless waste of mortal flesh of the lot of them. When the Horned King controlled the world, Creeper would be the very first one he would kill, and he would take great satisfaction in finally strangling that useless whelp to death. For now, however, he kept Creeper around for his own personal amusement, and for those rare, almost nonexistent, times when Creeper proved himself useful.

Like now, for instance.

"This had better be worth my time," the Horned King's gravelly voice sent unpleasant chills down Creeper's spine, and he clenched his one good eye tightly shut as he felt the evil man's (if he could even be called a man) gnarled fingers wrap tightly around his much-abused throat. He smiled, though, showing off his jagged teeth, because he had done something right this time, and surely the Horned King would reward him greatly for this! He opened his eye again, both this time, and looked up at the evil king's face, trying not to cringe as he looked into black holes where eyes should have been and smelled the stench of decay.

"Oh, y-y-yes, sire!" Creeper croaked, clutching at the hands around his neck. His reptilian feet dangled helplessly in the air as the king raised him to eye-level. "I-I have a feeling you'll _love_ this, s-sire!"

Creeper yelped as the Horned King threw him to the ground at his feet. But as he gulped in large amounts of the pungent air, his pained wheezes molding into excited peals of manic laughter as he scurried down the steps to the bottom of the dais on which his sire's throne rested. At the foot of the steps he let out one more deranged giggle before turning to sneer at one of the barbarous fools sitting at one of the many wooden tables. "You, there!" he spat, pointing at the imbecile to make sure he knew he was referring to him. "Come here!"

The stupid oaf actually had the gall to laugh at him! But one glare from the Horned King had the blundering idiot scrambling out of his seat and coming forward, and Creeper took great pleasure in taunting him: "Faster, you _fool_! The King does not like to be kept waiting!"

Once the lumbering buffoon was standing at the foot of the stairs, Creeper quickly danced back to his place at his sire's side, crouched on the armrest of the great throne.

"Look, sire, _look_! The shadows!" he whispered excitedly, both eyes open wide and focused on the poor muscle-head at the bottom of the dais. He began cackling madly again as the shadows around the man began to twist and move of their own accord – thickening, darkening, molding into small body-like forms. Dull, emotionless eyes opened two by two, and Creeper's giggles reached another octave as the frightened warrior below wielded his tankard of ale uncertainly as his glazed eyes trying to size up these strange opponents. The Horned King leaned forward in his throne and watched intently as the shadows circled their victim, twitched and writhed, and finally sprung upon him. The room was filled with the man's screams and the other men's startled yells as he was swarmed and flailed and fell to the floor. His fellows watched in horror as the shadows pierced his chest and ripped out his heart, and the dead body of the man began to shudder and to shake and to shrink and to darken until another shadow was lying on the grimy stone floor.

If the Horned King had had enough flesh left on his rotting face, he would have been smirking at the sight. Instead, he steepled his fingers under his chin and leaned back in his throne, and watched as the shadows sank back into the darkness of the room.

"T-they will fight for you, sire!" Creeper told him, wringing his clawed hands together. "Nothing can stop them – nothing! We don't need the Black Cauldron, or that stupid _pig boy_ and his pet!"

"We?"

"I-I-I m-mean _you_, sire! _You_, of c-course! I meant no disrespect! I wasn't thinking!" Creeper chuckled nervously, rubbing subconsciously at his throat. But the Horned King seemed to have forgotten he existed. The man rose from his throne, dusty scarlet robes swirling about his feet, and began to laugh low in his throat. With these heartless creatures allied with him, no man would be able to stand in his way, and he would become a god among mortal men. Creeper giggled sporadically with him, slowly growing more confident the farther the Horned King (and his strangling hands) got from him as his sire stepped down the steps.

"Yes. _Yes_," the Horned King whispered. The remaining warriors in the room all shuddered in delicious fear, color draining from their mulish faces. The shadows in the room again began to move, and whispers came from the darkness. "Come to me!" the king called, and then they were no longer shadows but small, stygian creatures twitching and waiting for his commands. "Kill! Feed on these weak mortal hearts and multiply! Make an army worthy of the Horned King!"

Creeper actually had to cover his ears and clench his eyes tightly shut as the screams began anew. It was terrible, terrible! But as long as that wasn't _him_ down there, with black claws digging into his chest and tearing out his heart while he screamed in agony, then everything was fine. Everything was going so well – his sire hadn't even strangled him once! "W-what about the pig boy, sire? What shall I do with him?"

The reptilian peon whimpered as the Horned King glanced away from the horror before him to glare down at him over his shoulder. His eyeless sockets glowed a sickening red, the light of the very fires of hell itself. "Kill him. I have no use for him, or anyone else in this castle. Leave none alive."

Meanwhile, in the dungeons of the Horned King's castle, a young man by the name of Taran sat sprawled in one of the king's fine cells. He was mostly likely in one of the nicest cells, though he couldn't know this as he sat on the filth-covered stone floor. This particular cell was quite spacious and skeleton-free, and a bit of light dripped into the room from a wooden grate in the high ceiling. He sat in a pool of this light with his face buried in his hands as he lamented all of his mistakes and the people he had failed. It had been his duty to protect Hen Wen, the oracular pig, and keep her away from the Horned King so that he would never discover the location of the Black Cauldron – a cursed vessel that could be used to summon an army of undying warriors; but he had been too busy daydreaming to keep his promise. If he had just done what he was supposed to do instead of dwelling on false dreams of grandeur that would never come true for him, then Hen Wen would have never been captured, and he wouldn't be in a dungeon.

He was pulled from his thoughts by a strange sound coming from the far corner of the room. He watched as the shadows there seemed to darken for a moment, and then there were thick tendrils of shadow moving in the darkness. They swirled and swirled seemingly mindlessly, pitch blacks and thick purples and everything in between, until they finally stopped and dispersed, and a body was left in their place. Taran glanced warily about him, as if other random vortexes of shadow would spawn and swallow him up or dump more random people in his cell, before creeping closer to the person on the floor. He took in the strange clothes worn under the long beige cloak bordered with intricate weaving patterns of black and pale silver. His hair was the palest blonde Taran had ever seen, and his skin, though only slightly tanned, was a novelty in Prydain where everyone was relatively pale. This person was also noticeably unconscious, but, even knocked out cold, he still wore the most heartbreaking expression of sadness Taran had ever witnessed.

Zephyr felt like he was trapped in a never-ending sea of darkness, floating along helplessly in the current, unable to move or feel or even speak. Voices came to him in the dark.

"Hello?"

'_Coren…? Is that you?_' Zephyr asked silently.

'**No.**'

'_Cor!_'

"Are you alright?"

'**You need to wake up.**'

'_What about you? Where are you?_'

"They're coming! You need to get up!"

'**Wake up…**'

'_Wait! Don't leave!_'

'**…ake…up…**'

"HEY!"

"_Coren!_" Zephyr choked out, snapping into a sitting position. But the voice was fading away, slipping through his fingers like grains of sand, and the boy in front of him was not Coren. He was tall and lanky, yes, but his eyes were the wrong shade of blue, he was a brunette, and he had a bit of a mousy look about him. It was then that the blonde noticed his surroundings – that, even though it was still nightfall and the atmosphere still left much to be desired, he was no longer in the abandoned building, surrounded by those heartless shadows. He appeared to be in a dungeon of some sort, if the stone walls and floor and the bars on the window of the single wooden door were any indication. How had he gotten here, and where was 'here,' anyway? The last thing he remembered was…well…he rather not remember that. But Zephyr could have _sworn_ he'd heard his friend's voice. How could that be if he were…gone? Could that mean he was alive somewhere? Or was it simply wishful thinking?

"Calm down, I'm not going to hurt you," the boy was saying. "Are you alright? Can you move? We need to find a way out of here before the guards get here."

"I – Where are we?" Zephyr asked, accepting the hand the other boy was offering and making his way unsteadily to his feet. He had a sick feeling that he wasn't in Radiant Garden any longer.

"You're in Horned King's dungeons," the boy said, in a tone that indicated he should have already known that and a slightly distrusting look. But Zephyr supposed he wouldn't be entirely trusting of someone who had appeared out of thin air, either. The boy opened his mouth to say something else, but a grating sound from the other side of the cell drew their attention. There was a blonde-haired girl peering out of a hole in the floor neither of them had noticed before. A strange, glowing bauble flew out of the hole from behind her and flitted curiously around Zephyr's head, its light a comfort after so much darkness and a stab in his heart as it reminded him of fireflies.

"Hmph…I thought I heard a noise in hear…" the girl muttered to herself, looking about the room curiously. She smiled when she noticed the two people staring at her with twin expressions of disbelief and climbed clumsily from the hole. "Oh! Was that you two?"

"I…yes," the taller boy replied somewhat hesitantly as the bauble flew over to him. He touched it uncertainly and flinched when it flashed brightly at him.

"Oh, I hate this place! I do hope there aren't any rats in here. Ah, not that I really mind them, you know, but they do jump out at one so," the girl was saying, readjusting her dress as if she wasn't standing in the middle of a dank dungeon with the sounds of guards steadily approaching. Though if Zephyr listened carefully, it didn't sound like multiple people. It sounded more like one person, cackling and shouting enough for fifty people, but either way it didn't sound like something they should stand around and wait for. "I'm Princess Eilonwy. Are you lords, or warriors?"

"Er, no…I'm…an assistant pig-keeper. I'm Taran," the other boy murmured. No, Zephyr definitely wasn't in Radiant Garden any longer. He wasn't exactly certain what a 'pig' was, but he'd never heard of any back home. But that still left the question to exactly _where_ he was now, and how he had gotten there in the first place. He had been swallowed by the darkness, hadn't he? He thought he would have remembered somehow managing to escape. And if Zephyr hadn't been killed by the Heartless…maybe there was a chance…No. He had _seen_ Coren's heart get ripped from his body… "What about you?" He startled from his thoughts when both Taran and the girl turned to look at him expectantly, and it took him a moment to remember the question. He could brood later; right now they had to get out of this dungeon.

"Oh, I'm Zephyr. I'm a mage," he said, and explained further when the other two continued to look at him blankly. "I, uh, cast spells. Elemental, mostly, though I'm still learning."

"Oh, that's wonderful! Maybe you can help me escape!" the princess smiled radiantly and turned to the other boy almost as an afterthought. "And, if you want to come with us, you may."

"Thanks…"

There was suddenly the sound of keys jingling in the door's lock and cackling coming from the other side. The girl and her bauble dropped back into the hole and Taran began to follow them. "Come on, then, unless you _want_ that Creeper to find you here."

The blonde mage and the strange boy managed to make it down into the hole and cover it back up with a loose stone just as Creeper unlocked the cell door. They could hear his shrill, panicked cries and giggles, "Oh no,"s and "It wasn't my fault,"s. "I-It d-doesn't matter," Creeper muttered to himself. "Yes, e-everything is _fine_. They won't survive for long, wherever they've gone! No, the Heartless will take care of them!"

Zephyr froze, but the dark feelings that were suddenly surging inside of him couldn't be stopped. This was not the chilling despair he had felt in Radiant Garden as the darkness had descended upon Coren and him, or the heart-wrenching agony of when Coren had…presumably died ('_Then why did I hear his voice? I _know_ that was him! I know it!_'). Hatred was boiling deep inside of his heart, bubbling up his throat and burning him from the inside out. It was terrifying, this feeling – he had never really felt even the remotest dislike for anything before, let alone hate – but he couldn't control it. He couldn't push it back down. _Heartless_. Heartless had killed his Coren and so many countless others, and for what? What had they done to deserve that fate? Why couldn't he stop this feeling? It was burrowing deeper and deeper inside of him, wrapping around his heart, squeezing tighter and tighter an-.

A light, unfamiliar but comforting suddenly zipped into his field of vision, effectively snapping him out of the newly discovered dark corner of his mind and nearly blinding him in the process. The strange bauble bobbed to and fro before him, as if it were trying to analyze him, before flitting off down the dark corridor. Zephyr had absolutely no idea where that surge of pure hatred had come from, but he hoped it didn't come back. Outrage, anger, even despair, he could deal with, but hatred wasn't something he was familiar with. He didn't like the way it had crawled up his throat like black bile and clouded his heart and mind. He quickly trotted down the passageway to keep up with Taran and Eilonwy; he didn't like how the shadows seemed to grow the farther they and the bauble got from him.

It appeared that the other two had found a hole in the wall, and the bauble obligingly swooped in to light the chamber for them.

"A burial chamber!" Eilonwy exclaimed just as Zephyr caught up to them and peered over her shoulder. The room on the other side of the wall was in even worse condition than the rat-filled corridor they were in now, littered with ancient rubble and spider webs so thick and immense that they almost seemed like silken drapes. In the center of the room was an ancient stone coffin. "This could be the tomb of the great king who built this castle! Before the Horned King took it over…Ah!"

The blonde princess let out a little shriek as the wall they leant on started to crumble and fall and quickly backed away, but Taran wasn't quite fast enough and tumbled to the floor.

"Are you alright?" Eilonwy asked. She seemed to take Taran's baleful glare as a sign that he was indeed fine, but Zephyr stepped forward to offer him a hand up. "Well, come on then! Help me have a look around."

They didn't have _time_ to look around, Zephyr thought to himself with a bit of frustration. He might not know exactly what was going on, but he was fairly certain that you didn't take breaks in the middle of escape attempts to admire the scenery, especially not if there were Heartless involved. Didn't these kids understand the danger they were in? No, of course not. _Their_ world hadn't just been swallowed by an uncaring and unforgiving darkness. They hadn't stood by and watched an innocent little girl, or their best friend for that matter, get their heart ripped out and not been able to do anything about it. Their world was still alive, for the time being, and they were still innocent, despite whatever had brought them to this dungeon in the first place. Hopefully, they would stay that way for a while longer.

Zephyr followed Eilonwy to the other side of the room, where she was peering curiously through another hole in the wall, while Taran went to investigate the stone coffin. The little bauble darkened to a less noticeable blue glow as it hovered behind the pair of them, which Zephyr was thankful for. There were four guards lurking in the hallway, whispering rather loudly to each other about something. Zephyr couldn't hear what they were saying, but he could tell that they were agitated about something – probably the escaped prisoners. He was about to turn away when suddenly they heard the same shrill cackles they had heard from the dungeon cell. They were echoing down the hallway on the other side of the wall, growing closer and closer to the guards who were now drawing their weapons and staring in open-mouthed horror at something that neither Zephyr or Eilonwy could yet see. Taran came up behind them and peered over their shoulders just as the cause of their terror came into view.

The cackles were apparently coming from some short, hideous, reptilian creature with an eye problem, who was crawling and leaping down the hall with a manic grin on his green face. Behind him, lurching and twitching and writhing, was a small horde of shadows. Most of them looked like the same beings that had plagued Radiant Garden, small, simple black humanoid forms, but some of them were different. They were taller and more humanoid in shape, and even wore clothes. But their abnormally large hands ended in blood red, tapered claws, and within their shining helmets their eyes were two soulless, glowing points in the darkness. The guards shuffled back uncertainly and raised their weapons almost as an afterthought, but Zephyr knew they didn't stand a chance. One guard bolted, the others quickly followed his example, and a swarm of darkness followed them out of sight. And then there were only the sounds of their screams, as even the strange green creature didn't seem to have the heart to cackle.

"What _were_ those things?" Taran asked as soon as he was sure that the creatures and Creeper were out of earshot.

"Heartless," Zephyr murmured back absentmindedly, his mind still fixed on the emotionless yellow eyes and the screams of the victims.

"Well, let's get out of here before they come back!" Eilonwy whispered urgently, and Zephyr agreed with her wholeheartedly. The farther away they got from those…things, the better. The three of them moved away from the wall and started down another hallway, with the bauble going ahead of them to light the way. Zephyr thought that there should definitely be more guards around, especially with escaped prisoners running around, but he had an inkling of where they might all be – or more accurately, what had happened to all of them. He desperately wished that he had his staff with him, but he doubted it would do him much good. He was still drained from the fight for his life in Radiant Garden, and, even if he was fully recuperated, he doubted he would be very helpful against the horde of Heartless rampaging through this castle. He had never felt so _useless_.

'_**No**_**.**' Zephyr gasped as the familiar voice flashed through his mind, along with a sudden wave of rejection. He hadn't noticed that he'd stopped moving until he look up and saw Taran and Eilonwy looking back at him oddly.

"Are you alright?" the young princess asked, her blue eyes wide with concern.

"I – yes, I'm sorry. Let's keep moving."

'_Coren?_' Zephyr asked the silence in his mind, but there was no reply.

The three of them continued down the hallway as quickly and quietly as possibly. It was easy going, and Zephyr wasn't sure if he wanted to consider that good luck or bad tidings. He wouldn't wish heartlessness on anyone, but he also didn't want to get chopped into bits by the nasty-looking axes those guards had been wielding. However, the seeming emptiness of the castle lulled them into a false sense of security, so that when they finally did run into trouble, they weren't prepared for it. The next corner they flew around put them face to chest with three of some of the ugliest men that Zephyr has ever seen in his life. The guards apparently also had a very low opinion of them, because they were only afforded a second of stunned silence before the brutes were unsheathing their axes and swords.

"Pig boy!" was the most articulate thing that the overlarge thug in the middle could muster before he was stepping forward to attack. But apparently Taran had been ready for him. Before Zephyr could get up his hands to even try at a weak spell, Taran had whipped out a sword from nowhere and was blocking the bigger man's axe swing. What should have happened was Taran being knocked to the floor as he tried to ineffectively block an attack from a man twice his size and five times his weight, but, thankfully, that didn't happen. Instead, the sword burst into a flurry of radiance more spectacular than a sunset in Radiant Garden and vaporized the axe until there was nothing left but a wooden stump where the handle used to be. There was a moment where everyone in the hallway stood staring in awe of the miraculous weapon before it started bobbing threateningly toward the guards of its own accord, dragging Taran along behind it. When the men dropped their weapons and ran, the brilliant light disappeared, and the sword seemingly slipped back to sleep.

Eilonwy seemed to be the first to recover her wits. "Where did you get that sword…?"

Taran looked away sheepishly before gesturing vaguely behind him and answering, "Uh, back there."

"You mean…" The princess couldn't seem to decide where she should be more awed by the sword, or appalled at the boy's slightly morbid means of acquiring it.

"Well, he's not going to use it!" Taran said defensively and held the sword to his chest. He turned to see if he couldn't get more sympathy from a fellow boy, who must obviously know how epic the discovery of the sword had been even if he did dabble in magic, but saw that Zephyr wasn't paying them any attention. He was staring down the hallway, the opposite way the men had run, with a look of abstract horror disturbingly similar to the ones worn by the guards outside the burial chamber before they had been attacked by the shadow creatures. The young brunette looked to see what was transfixing him so, and found himself frozen in horror as well. At the other end of the hallway, but quickly closing the distance with every twitchy, erratic movement of a misshapen limb, was an army of Heartless. It was hard to make out exactly how many of them there were with the corridor being so poorly lit, but there were more pairs of eyes than Zephyr could easily count, and more than had swarmed his and Coren's hideaway in Radiant Garden, and the blonde-haired boy wasn't ashamed to admit that he really was terrified.

"Do you think you can get that sword of yours to do that again?" the mage through over his shoulder, shaking himself to clear his head. There was no option of running. Wherever they went, the Heartless would catch up to them. Thankfully, Taran seemed to realize this, because he shuffled into an unsteady stance and gripped the sword with both his hands, and his expression was determined if more than a little anxious.

"I'm ready. Let them come!" And if his voice wobbled all over the place, neither Zephyr nor Elionwy were going to point it out. They didn't have the time to, anyway, because the Heartless were upon them.

**-x-**

Reviews to me are like...hearts to a Heartless. =D


End file.
